IN THE GUTTER

mrs fireseed has recently enrolled for some english study
to get a qualification she needs for the new teaching course she's doing
her classmates are an eclectic bunch
but several of them are asylum-seekers or refugees
some of the stories they tell bring tears to your eyes
there is a woman from iraq with three small kids
the younger ones are three and six
she put a trampoline in the garden for the children to play on
so the local yobs threw stones and rocks at them
the family went away on holiday
and when they came back the trampoline had been ripped to shreds
the yobs through eggs at the windows
the mother was relieved that they were only eggs
the police asked her if she liked living in the area
she told them she didn't
so they accused her of making up stories
so that she could get a move to somewhere else
so a family of uprooted refugees is victimised
by a mob of disenfranchised youths
egged on by the gutter press
dividing and conquering with with their malicious tales
of tides of greedy immigrants
who flood the country to rip off our welfare system
meanwhile away from the tabloid spotlight
in the sordid margins of the media
the wealthy and the privileged go on screwing the poor and downtrodden
and no one bats an eyelid